Car for Tuscany

We spent a few days touring Rome a few years ago and then went to a location in downtown Rome, picked up our car and drove to Montepulciano. When we finished with the car and drove back to the airport in Rome we returned our car there, spent the night there and flew home the next day. We always rent cars wherever we go in Europe....and my husband and I laugh and say that picking up the cars and returning the cars are always the hardest things we do on our trips! We have done it many times in the last 10 years and it does seem to be getting easier but I remember returning ours at Rome’s airport and I should have asked more questions before we did it! I do think it is much easier to get the car at the airport and return it there......and we have now gotten in the habit of asking 20,000 questions.......do we need to leave our lights on (as in Switzerland where you can be fined if you don’t), where is the trunk unlatch button, do we have the stickers we need to legally drive in Italy, etc. Ask while you can....you will be glad you do!
Hope this helps!

We have picked up cars and returned them at Rome FCO and both Milan airports. Not difficult at all. At FCO you are near to autostrada north,
We also have rented and returned cars in Florence. Go to AutoEurope.com and you can see where car rental offices are located, their addresses, hours. We always book with AutoEurope.

Did you want to spend any time in Rome? If not, where did you want to spend your first night? That will determine the best place to pick up a car.

If you're not staying a night in Rome (so you would then pick up in Rome, at Termini or Tiburtina stations), you can take a train from the airport via Rome to Florence, spend the night in Florence, then pick up a car there. Roberto, our frequent poster who is originally from Florence, can give you all the details of EXACTLY where the best pickup and return spots are, if you give more details about your exact itinerary.

Orvieto is a 70 minute train ride north of the Rome Termini, and its Hertz office is a very popular place to pickup and turn in cars when touring Tuscany and Umbria. Hertz is just across the street from the train station.
Orvieto's also a very nice hilltown to visit or do day trips out of. It's about a 90 minute drive from Siena and the roads are excellent in the area.

You are right to rent a car for Tuscany. It is much better but you will be spending time in traffic on narrow roads and searching for a spot in municipal parking lots. (Month of year??) You probably should not drive that far on arrival from the US, but do you have a lot of travel experience? You should use the Search box (blue menu top of page) for general Italy information like ZTL, IDP, statutory/optional/creditcard/rentalcompany Insurance issues.

The autostrada north of Rome is unexceptional, so there is no reason not to take the train (change at Termini, alas) and rent in Orvieto or Florence or wherever. Are you making any stops? (Sleepiness is relevant, of course.) We stopped in Viterbo for the morning and Orvieto for the afternoon (from a cruise, not from FCO), but Orvieto is worth an overnight as well. It depends on your desires, not on my opinions!

It's not really possible to tell you where to sleep. You have to select some towns that are important to you, and some activities (I mean, like maybe wineries, agriturismos, famous restaurants, civic events, or whatever.) That will help you select a town. It also depends on whether you want a cheap room, a luxury resort, or to disrupt the local economy with an AirBnb. We chose a rural luxury resort (in Sinalunga) but there is nothing to say that's your location. We wanted effortless parking, solid air conditioning, and easy access to daytrip roads. We did rather a lot of driving. It turned out that despite not being "pool people", we relished the resort pool after a sweltering day of touring, and used it every evening before dinner. We chose to eat small plates at the resort bar, because we had ambitious gourmet lunches to soak up the wine at wineries. (Advance reservation and payment in advance absolutely required.)

Here are some more details on our trip, but I do not mean to represent them as conclusive for anyone else!:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/sorrento-to-siena-by-car-stop-in-orvieto-heart-of-tuscany-drive

How about going directly to Orvieto by train as soon as you land in Rome, stay there a couple of nights, then get to the Hertz office in Orvieto as soon as it opens the next morning? (The office is quite small and can get quite crowded by later morning, in my experience.) Then, drive to a chosen hill town in Tuscany and encamp there for a few days, using it for day trips throughout Tuscany. I love Montepulciano as a home base, as it is a beautiful hill town within a couple of hours drive of so many wonderful towns and cities: Pienza, Florence, Siena, Montalcino, etc. Then return your car to either Orvieto or to Chiusi (much closer to Montepulciano) and train back to Rome, skipping the Rome traffic. If you do return to the Rome airport, give yourself plenty of extra time to make a few wrong turns!

We rented from Hertz at FCO and returned there. It was easy.

Will you be in Rome first? If so, I like the advice to take the train to Orvieto and pick up and return the car there. There's not much to see between Rome and Orvieto on the Autostrada, though the drive is straightforward.

Also, if you have already seen Rome, I suggest you consider staying at the FCO Hilton if you have an early flight out. We returned our car early afternoon, checked in, then took the free shuttle into Rome. We wandered around, had dinner and took the 10:30 shuttle bus back to the hotel. It was a nice, relaxing last night in Italy. The next morning, the hotel shuttle took us to our terminal.